In modern computing environments, computer systems are often required to communicate with other computer systems to perform any one or more of a vast number of different functions. Such communication may involve one computer system requiring the services or resources of another computer system. Referring to FIG. 1, in cases where multiple computer systems are not or cannot be directly and physically connected to one another due to, for example, being in different or remote locations, communication among multiple computer systems 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20 is facilitated by one or more networks 22 (e.g., the Internet) to which the multiple computer systems 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20 are operatively connected.
When a computer system sends data to a network for subsequent transmission to another computer system, that data is typically sent as numerous packets of data that can be universally recognized and handled by at least those networks that play a role in facilitating the transfer of that data between the computer systems (the propagation of packets in one or more networks hereinafter referred to generally as “network traffic”). A packet is typically formed of a header portion and a payload portion. The header portion may include information regarding, for example, an address of the sending system, an address of the desired receiving system, a size of the packet, a transport protocol used to transmit the packet, or other information identifying or characterizing the packet. The payload portion includes the actual data (e.g., data needed by the receiving system to perform a particular computation) to be transmitted from the sending system over the network to the receiving system.
To facilitate the sending and receiving of network traffic, a computer system typically includes or is otherwise connected to a network interface such as, for example, a hardware component known as a “network interface card” (NIC). FIG. 2 shows a typical computing environment having a “host” system 30 in operative connection with a network interface card 32. As shown in FIG. 2, the host system 30 includes a computing resource (e.g., a central processing unit (CPU), a temporary data structure) 34 that is operatively connected to the network interface card 32.
The network interface card 32, which is connected to a network 36, includes a classifier 38, receive rings (e.g., first-in, first-out queues) 40 that are each associated with a set of buffers, and send rings 42 used to transmit outgoing network traffic. Incoming network traffic is analyzed by the classifier 38 and assigned to one of the receive rings 40 based on, for example, an identification (e.g., an internet protocol (IP) address) or connection type (e.g., transmission control protocol (TCP)) of a particular packet. The classifier 38 is part of a larger hardware classification “engine” that is statically programmed to direct received traffic to particular receive rings 40 based on information present in the received traffic. Such programming of the network interface card 32 is done statically and is optimized for a default distribution of received traffic to the receive rings 40.
Upon assignment by the classifier 38 of a particular packet to one of the receive rings 40, the packet is forwarded to that receive ring and a corresponding interrupt may be issued to the computing resource 34 to indicate the receipt of new data. Depending on, for example, a priority attributed to a particular receive ring, the computing resource 34 may instantiate a thread or use a current thread to retrieve the new data forwarded to that particular receive ring. In other cases, the computing resource 34 may not actively retrieve new data forwarded to a particular receive ring, and instead, may simply wait for new data to be processed through that particular receive ring.